The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...

For the next few weeks we’ll be looking at Isaiah 61. This is the scripture Jesus quoted when he read the scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth and announced ‘this day, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ (Luke 4:21) It is a scripture that always gives me chills. In this series I’ll be taking time to consider what this means to me and I invite you along for the journey.

We’ll look at the various parts of the citation and what they could mean to us as a follower of Jesus. Today we start with Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted...”
How do I/we proclaim liberty, comfort those who mourn, repair and build up?

Last Sunday was Pentecost when we remember the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those in the upper room. That Spirit is still active in our lives. As Isaiah proclaims, “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. Each of us can claim that promise. I like this image by Estella Canziani which shows the moment when the Spirit swept through the Upper Room transforming the frightened disciples into powerful witnesses for God.

Just like those first apostles, we are anointed daily by the Spirit to do God’s work. And what is that work we might ask? Immediately Isaiah answers we are to ‘bring good news to the oppressed/poor/afflicted/meek’ and ‘bind up/heal/help the brokenhearted’. How do we do something like that?

In God’s infinite ability to smile at what we humans propose to do…into my inbox on Thursday came a meditation based on this same reading which offers one answer! The Rev. Dr. Robert Fossett, pastor of the historic First Presbyterian Church of Greenville, Alabama, wrote

“…Jesus hands the scroll back and says, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." With Jesus, our Sabbath rest has come. The Sabbath days and years and the year of Jubilee were a sign of the redemption that God had promised to Eve, that one of her offspring would crush the head of the serpent and would make all things new, restoring what had been marred and broken by sin. Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. Jesus is our Sabbath rest. Jesus is our Jubilee. When Jesus claims to fulfill the words of the prophet Isaiah, he promises to comfort the poor, free those who are in prison, and bring forth the Lord's favor. His ministry is filled with foretastes of what is to come when he returns again: he healed the sick, bound up and cast out demons, fed the hungry, gave sight to the blind, comforted and accepted the outcast, and resurrected the dead. All these things point forward to the rest God will give his people.

The day is coming when God will fully redeem his people. We long for this day to come and rightly we should pray often, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus, come quickly." But in the meantime, we are to keep the Sabbath…”

The only way we can even hope to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the oppressed, poor, afflicted, meek’ and to ‘bind up and heal the brokenhearted’ is to be grounded and rest in Jesus. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” says St. Paul (Philippians 4:13) When we rest in God and allow God to work through us, we can do great things. 

This week think about how the Spirit of the Living God fills you each day so that you can be part of the Body of Christ to the hurt of the world. Perhaps studying the image by Estella Canziani would inspire your meditations.

You might take time to read the rest of Fossett's blog post, and to think about the questions posed by Pastor Fossett, or to offer the prayer he gave.